Search

The article reviews the book "Direct Action: Memoirs of an Urban Guerrilla," by Ann Hansen.

The article reviews the book "The Limits of Rural Capitalism: Family, Culture, and Markets in Montcalm, Manitoba, 1870-1940," by Kenneth Michael Sylvester.

'Precarious employment' is a better concept for understanding labour market insecurity than the dominant concept in Canada, 'non-standard work.' We examine dimensions of precariousness between and within mutually exclusive forms of employment. The growth of 'non-standard work' is fuelled by increases in forms of employment that lack regulatory protection, such as own- account self-employment. Wage work falls along a continuum of precariousness measured as regulatory protection, control and income. Finally, employment in precarious forms is shaped by social location. White men are concentrated in the least precarious forms of employment, while white women, women of colour and youth are concentrated in the more precarious forms.

This article examines the relationship between gender, forms of employment and dimensions of precarious employment in Canada, using data from the Labour Force Survey and the General Social Survey. Full-time permanent wage work decreased for both women and men between 1989 and 2001, but women remain more likely to be employed in part-time and temporary wage work as compared to men. Layering forms of wage work with indicators of regulatory protection, control and income results in a continuum with full-time permanent employees as the least precarious followed by full-time temporary, part-time permanent and then part-time temporary employees as the most precarious. The continuum is gendered through both inequalities between full-time permanent women and men and convergence in precariousness among part-time and temporary women and men. These findings reflect a feminization of employment norms characterized by both continuity and change in the social relations of gender. (English)

In February, 1948, a group of fish and blueberry processors formed the exclusively female, Ladies' Cold Storage Workers Union at Job Brothers fish plant in St. John's, Newfoundland. Unusual for the time, this organization was founded in the context of structural and social change in the Newfoundland fishery that altered the social relations of paid and unpaid work for women fish plant labourers. Cullum carefully explores this specific labour process and provides an open reading of the workers' narratives; a study of how the women of Job Brothers recounted stories of their work and domestic lives, and thus fashioned shifting identities as gendered, classed, and racialized subjects. --Publisher's description

The article reviews the book, "Heroines and History: Representations of Madeleine de Verchères and Laura Secord," by Colin M. Coates and Cecilia Morgan.

Globalization and neo-liberalism have been associated with a decline in unions. In seeking to respond to these problems, unions could cooperate internationally. The orthodoxy among industrial relations scholars is that the European Treaty is antithetical to international unionism because of various provisions which promote competition. The experience of the International Federation of Professional Footballers' Associations (FIFPro) contradicts this orthodoxy. In August 2001, FIFPro entered into a framework collective bargaining agreement with Federation Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) on a new set of rules to govern the worldwide employment of professional footballers. Football's transfer and compensation system violated competitive provisions, in particular the freedom of movement of workers, contained in the European Treaty. Following the 1995 decision of the European Court of Justice in Bosman, and strategic interventions by the European Commission, FIFA sought an accommodation with FIFPro, to protect its new employment rules from further legal attack.

The article reviews the book, "The Political Economy of Work in the 21st Century: Implications for an Aging American Workforce," by Martin Sicker.

The article rebuts Nelson Lichtenstein's conclusion (published in the same issue of the journal) that Walter Reuther was affiliated with the US Communist Party in the mid to late 1930s. (At the time, Reuther was a vice president of the United Automobile, Aircraft, and Agricultural Implement Workers of America (UAW); he went on to become UAW president from 1946 till his death in 1970.)

Recruitment processes are seen as critical to the success of contemporary organizations and integral to human resource practices, particularly in those firms setting up greenfield operations or undertaking organizational change programs. This article analyses the recruitment methods used in several large call centres in the Australian telecommunications industry. It particularly focuses on the issue of how recruitment was explicitly or implicitly designed to recruit customer service representatives who might be antithetic to workplace trade unionism. Three processes are identified. These include the use of sophisticated recruitment processes which identify those with unitarist tendencies, identifying and excluding, or blacklisting, those with union backgrounds or those who previously worked in highly unionized firms and lastly applying pressure on recruits to sign individual non-union contracts at the appointment or promotion stage.

A number of conflicting theoretical hypotheses have been advanced regarding the impact of unions on investment behaviour. The net impact of unions on investment is thus an empirical issue. In this article, the available empirical literature is reviewed. In addition, new evidence of the impact of unions on investment is presented using French data. In contrast to previous studies, both aggregate and disaggregate measures of union activity are used. The results indicate that French unions, in general, have not had a negative impact on investment behaviour. However, there is some evidence that the more militant unions have a negative impact on investment.

The article reviews and comments on several books including "Betrayal of Local 14: Paperworkers, Politics, & Personal Replacements," by Julius Getman, "Copper Crucible: How the Arizona Miners' Strike of 1983 Recast Labor-Management Relations in America," by Timothy J. Minchin and "Forging a Common Bond: Labor & Environmental Activism During the BASF Lockout," by Jonathon D. Rosenblum.

The article reviews the book, "Cultures of Opposition: Jewish Immigrant Workers, New York City, 1881-1905," by Hadassa Kosak.

The article reviews the book, "The Job Training Charade," by Gordon Lafer.

Trade unions have dealt with the thorny issue of layoffs since their formation, but relatively little has been written on the topic of union strategies for surviving large-scale redundancies. This paper examines these strategies in an industry that is all too familiar with massive layoffs: railroading. An analysis of union responses to job losses presupposes an understanding of the factors underlying managerial decisions about staff reduction. We argue that the nature of "downsizing" has changed considerably in the last 40 years. In industries such as railroading, managers were formerly preoccupied with labour-saving technology. As such, unions struggled for a significant voice and co-determinative role in the introduction of new machinery. In Canada, unions came close to obtaining such a role through the recommendations of the Freedman Report. Following their defeat in acquiring a major role in determining issues of technological change, railway unions focused on winning employment security provisions in their contracts. However, managers would view employment security as an anomaly when they turned to organizational change to increase productivity. More recently, older railway unions and newer union entrants to the industry have experienced tactical disagreements over how to confront the offensive against employment security in railroading.

The article reviews the book, "The End of Marriage? Individualism and Intimate Relations," by Jane Lewis.

The article reviews the book, "Mass Communication in Canada," 4th edition, by Rowland Lorimer and Mike Gasher.

The article reviews the book "With These Hands: The Hidden World of Migrant Farm Workers Today," by Daniel Rothenberg.

This comprehensive survey of continuity and change in trade unions looks at five primarily English-speaking countries: the USA, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and the UK. The authors consider the recent re-examination by trade union movements of the basis of union organization and activity in the face of a harsher economic and political climate. One of the impetuses for this re-examination has been the recent history of unions in the USA. American models of renewal have inspired Australia, New Zealand and the UK, while Canada has undergone a cautious examination of the US model with an attempt to develop a distinctive approach. This book aims to provide a thorough grounding for informed discussion and debate about the position and place of trade unions in modern economies. --Publisher's description. Contents: Unions in crisis, unions in renewal / Peter Fairbrother, Charlotte A.B. Yates -- The American labour movement and the resurgence in union organizing / Kate Bronfenbrenner -- You just can't do it automatically: the transition to social movement unionism in the United States / Kim Voss, Rachel Sherman -- Trade union innovation, adaptation and renewal in Australia: still searching for the holy membership grail / Gerard Griffin, Rai Small, Stuart Svensen -- A near death experience: one union fights for life / Belinda Probert, Peter Ewer -- From organizational breadth to depth: New Zealand's trade unions under the Employment Contracts Act / Pat Walsh, Aaron Crawford -- A story of crisis and change: the service and food workers union of Aotearoa / Sarah Oxenbridge -- The dilemmas of social partnership and union organization: questions for British trade unions / Peter Fairbrother, Paul Stewart -- Rhetoric and reality: the adoption of the organizing model in manufacturing, science and finance / Bob Carter -- Strategic dilemma: the state of union renewal in Canada / Pradeep Kumar, Gregor Murray -- The revival of industrial unions in Canada: the extension and adaptation of industrial union practices to the new economy / Charlotte A.B. Yates -- Social movement unionism: beyond the organizing model / Christopher Schenk -- Globalization, trade union organization and workers' rights / Huw Beynon.

The article reviews the book, "Surviving Poverty in Medieval Paris: Gender, Ideology, and the Daily Lives of the Poor," by Sharon Farmer.